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In Honour of Emily

by T. SHER SINGH

She walks by my window several times a day.

I must confess that every time I see her go by, my eyes remain glued on her, from the moment she first appears in the frame of the window, to the instant she disappears past it into oblivion, even after I’ve craned my neck to get that extra, stolen glimpse.

My window is at ground level, its bottom barely a few inches above the ground. It’s large, and my view is unobstructed.

Passers-by on the side-walk are twenty-feet or so away from me as I sit here by my computer. But when she goes by, it’s almost as if I can reach out and touch her.

I don’t think she’s conscious of my eyes on her. In fact, I know she isn’t … because I can see that she is totally absorbed in herself, conscious of every move she makes. I can see that every step, every slice of her hands through the air, every stretch of her sinews, every shiver of her muscles, is a conscious and  deliberate act.

I am mesmerized by her artifice, and look forward to the next time.

Much as I would like to, I’m too shy to step out of my office, open the door, and talk to her … get to know her, ask her name, find out what she does, where she comes from each time she goes by, where she goes …

She’s always alone. Never seen her with another soul.

We did meet once, as I was heading out one morning for a walk, not long after I moved here around this time last year. I stopped at the side-walk to let her go by. She turned around and smiled at me. I smiled back. She stopped.

She said something, but I didn’t understand the words. I guess I was too self-conscious. “Beg your pardon,” I mumbled.

She wanted to know if I was the one who’d moved into the church. We talked for a few minutes, nothing much really. I don’t remember much. Mostly about the church, I think, and the village. I don’t think she said anything about herself, because I would’ve remembered. I wanted to know more about her, but was too hesitant to ask. She didn’t volunteer.

I know nothing about her. Not even her name. “Emily” is the name that leapt into my head one day, and that’s what I know her as, as I continue to follow her with my eyes even today.

But I can guess. Because I get to observe her a lot.

When she walks by, it is in slow-motion. Each step is calculated, measured, determined. It’s as if she is totally engrossed in each movement. Nothing in her body just happens. It is not accidental, and it is not automatic. Every nano-second is nuanced.

I’m not sure, but I think she may have “MS” - multiple-sclerosis.

It is obvious that she experiences difficulty in co-ordination, in keeping her balance. Her walk is unsteady.

Her speech is laboured. And I see her trying to focus better when she wants to zero in on something and look at it fully. Like when she sometimes stops and looks at a church stained-glass window, or follows a squirrel scurrying across my lawn. Sometimes a wild pea-hen parks itself in the middle of the grass, soaking in the sun. Somehow, Emily catches a glimpse of it, stops and admires it for a while, before she is on her way again.

I also know that she is a brave woman. I have figured it out that she makes certain choices daily, and they’re often tough ones.

I can see that she has good days and bad days.

Sometimes, she walks by with a light knapsack on her back, her hands free to help her negotiate and navigate her balance.

At other times, she has a walking stick, and I can see that she is then reliant on it heavily for any progress she makes.

And then, there are days when she zips by in her electric mobility scooter - a sort of a motorized wheelchair with a steering handle and an attitude.

I’ve learnt to admire it as one of the few inventions of modern man which truly enhance quality of life. [I’ve told my loved ones that if and when “the day” arrives, I want one of those for myself. A hi-speed one, with a shrill Patna-style horn, and ah yes, multiple gears!]

So I sit here and privately wonder how and when she chooses to do what.

Is it that she walks by, sans walking stick, when she’s having a good day, and feels she needs to give herself some exercise?

Are the walking-stick days the ones on which she feels lesser energy, but still wants to brave it out, alone and unassisted … to get some air, to burn some calories?

The scooter days, then, must be the “bad days”.

Since I don’t know what her affliction is, I don’t know if there is any relevance to what she does when she ventures out on any given day. Or of the frequency of each choice.

Is there a preponderance of one type of day? Is the frequency of one type of day increasing, as opposed to the other? I don’t know.

But there’s one other thing I do know about her.

I saw it again, for the umpteenth time, this morning.

From the corner of my eye, I saw her scooter on the side-walk enter the picture-frame of my window-eye. I looked up … and at that very instant, I saw the vehicle stop. Her eyes were on a spot in the grass, past our fence, out of my view.

I saw her go through several motions: turning the switch of the motor off, putting on the parking brakes, locking the steering handle, freeing the swivel of her seat so that it allowed her to swing to the side ...

She put a foot down on the pavement, her right hand on the steering, her left firmly on her seat, and slowly, very slowly, she rose.

Not sure if she was in need, or whether I should step out to help, I ran upstairs to an upper window to see more clearly.

Not dissimilar to break-dancing moves, but infinitely slower and considerably more punctuated by spasm-like shifts, she lifted herself upright, turned around, and stepped to the back of the scooter. Once there, she painfully bent over to reach into the basket that lay hidden under the seat, and pulled out something white from it.

She shook it feebly in the air a few times until it billowed: it was a plastic grocery bag.

Then she steadied herself, turned towards the lawn she had been looking at earlier, and in gradual, incremental motions of progress, she approached the spot, bent over to reach down into the grass, and pulled up something with one hand.

It was an empty beer bottle! Thrown away carelessly by a late-night reveller?

She put the bottle inside the bag and had begun to wrap it into a bundle when she appeared to see something else. She took a few laboured steps a few feet in one direction, bent over and picked up something - a stray piece of paper, I could see from my vantage point - and turned around, bent over again, picked up another piece of refuse.

She stabled herself upright, stood still for a couple of seconds, then put the pieces of garbage in the white bag, crumpled it into a tight bundle, and tied a knot on its top.

Then she slowly made her way back to the scooter. It took her about 20 seconds to cover the ten feet back to the machine.

She placed the garbage bag in the basket, returned to her seat, switched back everything in reverse order - all in her usual slow-motion, break-dance moves - and was soon well on her way …

It’s not the first time I’ve seen her do this.

Every now and then, I have walked or driven by her along our tree-lined street, and sometimes seen her similarly parked and going about the same routine.

That’s not all.

Every Thursday morning is our street’s weekly garbage pickup day. The night before, I place my yellow bag of garbage out on the street, past the side-walk, but just off the paved portion of the road. Alongside our blue, re-recycling box.

During the early, unearthly hours of each Thursday morning, two trucks mysteriously appear, one after the other, from the misty darkness. One whisks away the yellow garbage bag. The other empties the blue box and throws it back, upside down, onto the street-edge.

For months, I would wake up late on those Thursday mornings, and inexplicably find the blue-box neatly placed upright outside my door … about 30 feet from where it had been carelessly dropped on the street.

And then, one morning, while heading back from the kitchen to my office with my inaugural cup-of-tea, I witnessed the act with my own eyes.

Emily was walking along the side-walk when she caught the blue from the corner of her eye. She stopped. She focused. She observed the re-cycling box on the street.

Slowly, very slowly, at some peril, she managed to step off the foot-high side-walk, picked up the large and heavy box - not without considerable difficulty, I might add - somehow manoeuvred her way back up to the side-walk, struggled all the way to my door, placed the box neatly and gently outside it, turned around, and went on her slow but merry way.

I stood there. Speechless. Stunned.

No, I don’t hold a grudge against her for forcing me now to wake up even earlier on Thursday mornings, to beat her to the blue box.

But I do think about her all the time.

And struggle, sphinx-like as I stare out of my window, with the great enigmas of life:

Why, oh why, O Lord, those who have the least, give so much?

What, dear God, is the wellspring of their riches?

How, pray, how, those who have nothing, are the most grateful?

And the most content!

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